The ever growing popularity of cycling both on roads and off, for pleasure and commuting has brought about a large demand for ways to carry various items while riding a bicycle. The best method to carry a medium to large sized load on a bicycle is through the use of panniers (saddle type bags) attached to rear or front racks mounted to the bicycle.
In a modem urban environment the bicycle is often used for carrying groceries; however. existing rear-mounted panniers are not well adapted to carrying groceries because they are not properly sized or shaped to accommodate generally rectangular recyclable paper grocery bag and reusable grocery bag. Most existing pannier systems rely on a soft-sided carrying bag having a cinch closure. This is not an efficient shape to carry food items which are contained in rectangular containers.
The known bag-type panniers tend to be not high enough to accommodate a single grocery bag. The cinch type closure of the existing bag-type pannier closure is not well suited to protecting food items and may results in softer food items being crushed. As well, existing bag-type panniers do not readily fold or collapse into a smaller profile when empty.
Hard-sided panniers that take the shape of boxes mounted in a saddletype configuration are also known. These box-type panniers retain a rigid structure at all times and do not collapse into a smaller profile when empty. Therefore there is a need for a pannier system that is able to readily accommodate a generally-rectangular grocery bag, so as to avoid having to repack the groceries into the pannier.